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I sent my board in to have the bootloader reinstalled, apparently some of the newer units shipped out empty.

Upon receipt I reinstalled the board, and it appeared all systems were go. I had green LEDs where they're supposed to be, and Repetier 0.56 for Mac was able to connect and recognize the printer.

In the Repetier print panel, I see "5 commands waiting." I clicked "Power" and Heat Bed "Heat On" but nothing happened. I tried running some g-code too, that just increases the commands waiting. I don't see a way to clear the logjam of commands, so I toggled the software and printer on and off. Still jammed.

Next i tried the Blink command using Arduino 1.0.5. The proper light blinked, but the blink accelerated in a few seconds, then the light went out. Somewhere along the line, my LCD screen went from displaying numerals to blank squares. It's on, but just shows squares.

I've tried the resets on everything, several different ways. The board now only has a green LED7 and a slowly blinking yellow LED1. Repetier shows:
3:23:21 PM: Attempting to connect to printer
3:23:21 PM: Connection opened
3:23:25 PM: Connection closed
3:23:29 PM: Attempting to connect to printer
3:23:29 PM: Connection opened

on bottom tray of Repetier:
"11 commands waiting 4098 FPS"(this value changes erratically)"Unknown printer firmware. Waiting for temperature"


Any suggestions what to do next? I emailed SeeMe a few minutes ago, I'll post any reply I get.

Note also, on the SeeMe FaceBook page theres a mention that the new motors are wired differently. I wired mine the old way, G-R-B-Y, wondering now if that caused any problems.

Thanks folks!

I have the new motors also and wired them to the pins Y-B-R-G as called out on the pdf assembly file page 14 fig 2-8 with the arrow on the housing facing up.
If you look at them as you plug them into Rambo that would be G-R-B-Y since the housings are upside down on the board.

Island3 wrote:I sent my board in to have the bootloader reinstalled, apparently some of the newer units shipped out empty.

Upon receipt I reinstalled the board, and it appeared all systems were go. I had green LEDs where they're supposed to be, and Repetier 0.56 for Mac was able to connect and recognize the printer.

In the Repetier print panel, I see "5 commands waiting." I clicked "Power" and Heat Bed "Heat On" but nothing happened. I tried running some g-code too, that just increases the commands waiting. I don't see a way to clear the logjam of commands, so I toggled the software and printer on and off. Still jammed.

Next i tried the Blink command using Arduino 1.0.5. The proper light blinked, but the blink accelerated in a few seconds, then the light went out. Somewhere along the line, my LCD screen went from displaying numerals to blank squares. It's on, but just shows squares.

I've tried the resets on everything, several different ways. The board now only has a green LED7 and a slowly blinking yellow LED1. Repetier shows:
3:23:21 PM: Attempting to connect to printer
3:23:21 PM: Connection opened
3:23:25 PM: Connection closed
3:23:29 PM: Attempting to connect to printer
3:23:29 PM: Connection opened

on bottom tray of Repetier:
"11 commands waiting 4098 FPS"(this value changes erratically)"Unknown printer firmware. Waiting for temperature"


Any suggestions what to do next? I emailed SeeMe a few minutes ago, I'll post any reply I get.

Note also, on the SeeMe FaceBook page theres a mention that the new motors are wired differently. I wired mine the old way, G-R-B-Y, wondering now if that caused any problems.

Thanks folks!

When you connect in Repetier, it just means it opened the serial port at the specified settings, not that you're actually talking to the firmware. "5 Commands Waiting" is one of those signs that it's not talking at the most basic level...which means nothing else is going to work either. The most likely cause is a mismatch of baud rate between host and firmware.

Then when you "tried the blink command", what you actually did was REPLACE the firmware on the rambo with the blink program. The fast blinking for a bit was that program being downloaded. The slow blinking of one LED is the blink program working...that's all it's supposed to do. The LCD stopped working because the blink program doesn't have any LCD code in it. And of course, the blink program doesn't respond to Repetier either.

On the bright side, you proved the bootloader worked! What you need to do next is learn how to load the Repetier firmware, and how to make configuration changes to it. It's too late to diagnose your problem with the previous installation...it's gone.

The 1st and 3rd lines on those displays are always white boxes until they've received commands. It's a test pattern built into the LCD's onboard firmware. When you upload the blinky program, you should see the LED strobe a little (varies according to bootloader) and then it should be steady blinking that just goes on and on forever. If it does that, the microcontroller is probably OK.

Assuming that works, the next thing you should do is get the Repetier firmware compiled in Arduino. SeeMeCNC has a custom version of it that's just for the Rostock Max. It works better than the Marlin firmware, which is what your board came with. More to the point, you can go into Configuration.h and set the baud rate. Put in 115200. Why that specifically? Long story short: It's industry-standard, and your plan buffer will never run dry. (I bet someone is going to chime in about how 250000 is the right speed because it's a multiple of the Arduino's clock speed or something like that. It doesn't matter, I promise.) Once that's uploaded to the board, open the serial monitor in Arduino. If you pick 115200 for the port speed, you should see it output some words in English. If it does that, your firmware is ready to go.

Now, in Repetier, pick 115200. Hit Connect. If it sits there and says 5 commands waiting or whatever, or if it gives you some other error, let us know. If you got to the point where you could open the serial monitor in Arduino and see legible text coming across the wire at 115200, I bet it will work fine, because at that point there isn't much to go wrong.

Thanks everyone for the help. Apologies for not getting back sooner, holidays have been crazy.

The problem was definitely that I erased the firmware when I tried to Blink. So I downloaded the new Repetier firmware from the SeeMe website. I wasn't sure how to get the firmware compiled in Arduino, it's a little beyond me. Instead I ran an executable downloaded from the Repetier website, and that seemed to flash everything back to life (i can't retrace my steps, i did something with Arduino too) but I'm still not getting proper communication. (probably the wrong firmware, I'll use the SeeMe file next)

No problem, I have a guy coming over who knows it, he should have me up and running shortly.

Thanks all, rock on!
Ed

Okay, I'm getting closer,. my friend helped but he's stumped too. We figured out how to upload the Repetier firmware (downloaded from SeeMe) using Arduino. Before I uploaded I changed the baud rate to 115200. Hit upload on Arduino, and got a LCD display back, LEDs look good, etc.

So then i opened the serial monitor in Arduino. Picked 115200 for the port speed, but . . . all I get is gibberish. i tried toggling different baud rates in the serial monitor, and actually toggled them in the firmware. Tried 9600 and still get gibberish.

I tried it in Repetier, pick 115200. Hit Connect. It just sits there and says 5 commands waiting.

argh, now what ?
(Thanks for your help btw, really appreciated)

...and when I say toggled baud rate in the firmware, I mean I did it in synch with the serial monitor and Repetier settings, so that each experiment they matched up.

Seems to me it's a fault in the Repetier software, coming preloaded with 5 commands . . . ?

The serial monitor in arduino serves no purpose for the RamBo. Other then troubleshooting, even garbage is proof of a connection.

Repetier performs some automatic functions upon connecting ending, I believe, with a software reset. Mine takes a few seconds but eventually says idle. If I click home or heat bed or extruder it just raises the number of commands waiting. For real fun click the z home 10 times and watch your printer dance after the reset.

foshon wrote:The serial monitor in arduino serves no purpose for the RamBo. Other then troubleshooting, even garbage is proof of a connection.

Gibberish is only proof of a connection, not proof of a proper connection. If properly synced with the firmware settings (the monitor doesn't support the 250000 rate), one should get several lines of human-readable words from the firmware when you hit the reset button, then the word "wait" every second indicating its waiting for commands. You should also be able to send commands from the serial monitor (set the pull-down to add carriage returns). "M115"(get firmware version) is a good one to test with, which should respond with more readable text. Good list of commands here: http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code. Commands require capitals, don't use lower case.

Island3 wrote:...and when I say toggled baud rate in the firmware, I mean I did it in synch with the serial monitor and Repetier settings, so that each experiment they matched up.

Seems to me it's a fault in the Repetier software, coming preloaded with 5 commands . . . ?

Just to be clear, when you change the baud rate in the firmware you need to re-upload it before it takes effect. Since you're having trouble, I'd try 57600 for testing purposes, as it's slow enough to be error-free...although that's still fast enough to be functional, assuming it works.

And you use the serial monitor OR Repetier...not both at the same time.

Actually it's worse than that with Repetier, the baud rate is in the EEPROM settings, so even uploading it with it changed in configuration.h won't change it unless you disable EEPROM or bump the number.

Polygonhell wrote:Actually it's worse than that with Repetier, the baud rate is in the EEPROM settings, so even uploading it with it changed in configuration.h won't change it unless you disable EEPROM or bump the number.

Aha, excellent point, I wasn't thinking about that. He had a previous installation, so he already had some eeprom values written. That would explain his symptoms...the firmware is continuing to operate at 250000 baud because of eeprom settings.

Island3, increment the number attached to EEPROM_MODE in configuration.h to force a reset of eeprom values from the firmware when you upload it next time.

Why is it that people seem to INSIST on screwing around with the baud rate that the host software talks to the RAMBo at?

g.

Okay guys, thanks a million! I've established communication between my Mac and the printer. SeeMe Steve had me cycle the USB plug to thoroughly clear the path. Now Repetier shows 5 commands when I boot up, but those decay to 0 and then "Idle"

I'm able to send a command from Repetier to to move the axes, now I just have to figure out how to print I guess. Where do I get a good sample drawing to print? Someone mentioned a hollow cube . . . ?

woohoo it actually almost works : )

while I have you.. . I'm getting dead slow travel on the z-axis, where do i adjust that?

Island3 wrote:while I have you.. . I'm getting dead slow travel on the z-axis, where do i adjust that?

I should move as fast as it's commanded, there is probably a setting for jog speed in the host software, been a long time since I looked.
But for example after homing entering

G1 Z200 F10000

Should move pretty rapidly.

Thanks Poly,

Here's the result

They all Home at the same speed. But G1 Z200 F10000 causes all three to rapidly descend to about mid stroke, and
X, Y = 0
Z = 200

Hitting Z: -100 has all three crawling down slow a few inches
Hitting x: -10 moves x UP a notch fast
Hitting y: -10 moves y DOWN a notch fast


Hmmm tried the G1 code again, all three moved to center/home

Hitting z: -100 has all three crawling down
X, Y = 0
Z = 100

Hitting Home All has all three travel fast to top of stroke. X=0, Y=0, Z=0 on Repetier, but Z=365 on the LCD
Hitting Z: Home has all three check Home position
Hitting Y or X home, no reaction, and


What do you think?

You are confusing the labelled axis with the direction of travel.
From the host software Z is vertical motion, with 0 on the bed and whatever the height comes out to be at the home position.
Y moves towards and away from the "front" of the machine and X is left and right.
All 3 arms move for all 3 axis.
All the host software motion is specified in mm, so 100mm is about 4 inches.
In the preferences section of repetier HOST there will be a Z Jog speed.

You also cannot trust the position values displayed in the host software, the value returned by M114 is correct as is the one on the LCD screen.

Oh right on, now I get it. very cool, Thanks!


. . . and another printer is born . . .